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The Creation by Ernst Haas. 159 pages. Viking. $25. Formula for a nonbook: begin with the text of Genesis. Rummage through some photographer's lifetime supply of color transparencies for views of earth, air, fire and water, not to mention birds, beasts and fishes. Lay out in appropriate categories suggesting that the photographer has just been commissioned by some celestial art director to illustrate the King James Version. Bind and promote with reverence. Because Haas is an artist, the result is dazzling.
The World Atlas of Wine by Huqh Johnson. 272 pages. Simon & Schuster. $22.95. Last year's lavish token to Bacchus, The Great Book of Wine (World), cost $50. This year's is four times the book at half the price. Intelligently organized, precisely written and sensibly illustrated, the A this should prove valuable for the serious oenophile and the image-conscious expense account gourmand. One of Johnson's handy charts notes that red Burgundys from 1960, '65 and '68 are to be strenuously avoided, along with red Bordeaux for '63, '65 and '68. "Magnificent" is his term for '69 red Burgundys, though only a cad would drink them before '74.
Albrecht Diirer: Diary of His Journey to the Netherlands. Introduction by J.A. Goris and G. Marlier. 186 pages. New York Graphic Society. $22.50. When Pope Leo X excommunicated Albrecht Durer for his Lutheran sympathies in 1520, Germany's greatest artist packed himself off for a year in the Low Countries to draw, sell sheaves of his own work and frequent painters, princes and philosophers. Durer was the kind of man who listed the cost of everything from pig's bristles to fig cheese. But his account has long and justly been a prime source of fascinating detail about the state of painting, culture and commerce in Europe's busiest trading center. This edition, with an ample and readable introduction, plus reproductions of the silverpoint sketches, drawings and paintings Durer did along the way, is a rare and commendable blend of art and history.
A History of the Writings of Beatrix Potter by Leslie Linder. 446 pages. Frederick Warne. $20. "Nature, though never consciously wicked, has always been ruthless," Beatrix Potter once wrote, and the remark got into this book—along with everything visual and textual that tells how the lady created the world's most charming children's books. This overpriced confection is a must for all those who regard Peter Rabbit's scrapes in Mr. McGregor's cabbage patch as pleasurably picaresque as Tom Jones' undoings on the road to London, or figure that Mr. Tod v. Tommy Brock outclasses Patroclus v. Hector any day. The facsimile reproductions of Miss Potter's original illustrated letters to the Moore children would make a fine book by themselves. $10 to $20